Borrowed Comforts
by lovablegeek
Summary: [PreRENT] Borrowed comforts hold me tight but I'm still homeless... TheManApril, RogerApril. [One shot, series of drabbles]


**i. fickle junkie**  
Some things are so much a part of life in New York that eventually you don't notice them – garbage on the street, rats and cockroaches, traffic and homeless people and the dealer on the corner. Luther still notices those things, but maybe it's because he's part of that background noise no one pays attention to, unless they want a hit, and then they can always find him. But he sees hardship and pain and death, and realizes that maybe he's become numb in other ways. He doesn't overlook it like everyone else does – he just doesn't give a damn anymore.

**ii. the darker the fable**  
Luther's standing outside Gordon's apartment when he comes out His brother looks straight at him and turns away, ducking his head in a way Luther recognizes. It's that automatic ability of Gordon's to disengage, to go almost completely unnoticed. It doesn't work with Luther.  
"Hey," he says, and reaches out to grab his twin's arm.  
Gordon jerks away. "Get away from me. I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to look at you. _Ever_."  
He walks off, before Luther can respond, and Luther realizes he's lost his brother. He just can't quite figure out why.

**iii. river won't flow**  
"Luther, you can't deal drugs," April hissed, like there was anyone who would hear them when they were in their own place, with solid concrete walls around them. "It's dangerous."  
"And buying drugs isn't?" he asked. "I'll be fine."  
Sitting on their bare mattress on the floor, April looked up at him, and then down at her hands, picking at one of her fingernails. It was already bitten down to the quick. "I know, I just... I worry, you know?"  
He sat down alongside her on the mattress and kissed her forehead lightly. "I promise I'll be careful, okay?"  
"...Okay."

**iv. in a world we never made**  
It was sheer luck that he'd never gotten caught before now. Luther's lying flat on his back on the bench in the jail cell, staring at the ceiling. He'd been careless. He'd been cocky. Well, from now on he'll just have to be more careful.  
It does occur to him, though, that it's a hell of a lot warmer here in jail than it is at home. They actually have heaters here.  
"Oh, Cowboy," he hears April sigh, and he jumps a little, sitting up sharply. He hadn't even noticed her walking toward him. How'd she even know...?  
"Hey, sweetheart."

**v. you pull away so easily**  
Since April moved out of their place, and in with her boyfriend, things seem different with her. Maybe it's just in Luther's head. Maybe it's just that the very slight distance between them bothers him more now. Maybe it's just jealousy, knowing she kisses _Roger_ on the lips (and not just when she wants drugs), knowing that she sleeps at _Roger's_ side (and not clothed), knowing that she tells _Roger_ she loves him (and not as friends).  
It still bothers him, when they're sitting in a restaurant, she smiles and his heart jumps, then she mentions Roger and breaks the illusion.

**vi. short of the truth**  
Luther jumps a little when he hears the sirens. It isn't the sirens themselves that startle him, because it's New York City, after all. It's the fact that the sirens come from an ambulance that stops at the corner of 11th Street and Avenue B. What scares him more is that when the ambulance leaves, there are no sirens.  
He tells himself she's okay. He tells himself it was for one of her roommates – or not, for someone else in the building entirely. He waits, nevertheless, to hear the news, because the reassurances ring false, even in his own head.

**vii. like a waking dream**  
Luther's hands shake as he prepares the needle, and he almost drops it once or twice, but he keeps at it until he gets it right. It takes him longer than it should. He can't stop thinking about blood. April's blood – which he never saw, but that almost makes it worse. The virus in her blood, that had made her spill it in the first place. His blood on his knuckles, a fit of temper when he found out what happened.  
When he slides the needle into his arm, that doesn't help either. It leaves behind a smudge of red.

**viii. try and you will fail**  
Before April died, Luther had half-hoped she'd come back to him. Not that there was any _back_ to come to, not that they'd ever been a couple in the first place, but there was hope. Now there isn't. Now there's just hurt, and aching emptiness.  
April had never lived in the apartment he's in now, but he feels her absence in every corner, every silence. There's the knowledge that she could have been here, could have been his. Never going to happen now, and he knows that, and it's so much easier to try not to care.

**ix. end of the road**  
Luther still knows where Gordon lives. He could go find him, and try to apologize – for mistakes he'd made, for not being the brother he should have been, for not speaking to him for this long, even if that had been at Gordon's insistence. And maybe he should, and he almost wants to, just to find someone who knows him now April's gone. Even after all this time, Gordon _would_ know him inside and out.  
But still, he doesn't go back, and he can't think of a reason why, except he can't bear to be turned away again.

**x. shadowy faces**  
It's not quite a second chance. A second chance would be turning back time, would be getting April back, or even further, to before he started dealing, before he started using, or to that argument with Gordon... It's not a second chance, but it's a warm body beside him at night, someone who'll roll over and kiss him in the morning, and even if it's just because it gives her a place to stay, that's fine with him. She's something to make him a little less lonely, and between that and the drugs, that's all he can hope for anymore.


End file.
